Results from a sixteen year study on the effects of oiling from the Exxon Valdez on adult pink salmon returns.

For sixteen years following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill adult returns of pink salmon in Prince William Sound, Alaska were monitored to assess spill effects on survival. No evidence of spill effects was detected for either intertidal or whole-stream spawning fish. From 1989 through 2004 mean densities for oiled and reference streams tracked each other, illustrating similar responses of oiled and reference stream adult populations to naturally changing oceanographic and climactic conditions.